THE MODERN MIND 341
wildernesses or over barren wastes. Conveyances are equally rude. Tools are simple and machinery is practically non-existent. Cities are few and far between, and small; their streets are unpaved, unlighted, uncleaned; and public modes of transportation, even of the rudest sort, are un heard of. On the other hand, all the cosmic forces run wild in their might; only the feeblest beginnings have been made in the conquest of them for the service of man. It is apparent, therefore, that adjustment to the human environ ment is nothing like so insistent and dominating a problem as the establishment and maintenance of satisfactory rela tions with the natural environment.
3. What mental effects does living under such conditions produce ?
It is inevitable that men should interpret these cosmic forces in terms of their own consciousness. Under the cir cumstances it is practically certain that their representation of them will take the form of a multitude of spirits, good and bad, hidden behind the natural forms and expressing their purposes, more or less capricious, through natural phenomena. If by any means the people have come to have the idea of the unity of God, they are likely to bring this lofty conception into some sort of consistency with the lower notion of a world swarming with good and bad spirits. Being without science and impressed with the mystery of natural forces and processes, the notion of magic, sym pathetic and contagious, obsesses their minds ; and through its arts they fancy they are able to defend themselves to some extent against evil beings whose ill will menaces them, and to control in some measure the multitude of spirits surrounding them. So all-encompassing is this natural en vironment, so immediately and absolutely are men de pendent upon it, so closely does it press upon them with benefits and injuries, that adjustment to it monopolizes human attention. It becomes the most insistent problem of human life. Inevitably the habit grows upon them of inter preting the varying fortunes of their lives in terms of their
�� �
